The Poisoned Serpent (10 page)

The young knight frowned in confusion. “I’m sorry, my lady, but I don’t understand.”

“It is very simple,” Cristen said matter-of-factly. “I am going to Lincoln and you are going to escort me.”

Thomas’s mouth dropped open.

“We can leave this afternoon,” Cristen said.

Thomas shut his mouth with an audible click of teeth.

“We cannot do that, my lady,” he said. “I have not got Sir Nigel’s permission.”

Cristen said, with extreme pleasantness, “Perhaps you have forgotten that in the absence of Sir Nigel, I am the one in charge here at Somerford.”

Thomas gazed at her unhappily. “I have not forgot that, my lady. But…”

“It will all be perfectly proper,” Cristen assured him. “I will take one of my ladies with me…” She tilted her head a fraction, as if thinking. “I believe Mabel Eliot will be best. She is not prone to complain.”

Thomas’s light green eyes sparked with sudden interest. As Cristen well knew, the young knight had a partiality for Mabel. But he shook his head regretfully. “Sir Nigel will have my head if I take you away from Somerford without his permission, my lady. And at such a perilous time! The roads are filled with master-
less men these days, looking to prey upon anyone who might easily fall victim to them.”

“We won’t easily fall victim,” Cristen said. “We will have you.”

“I am only one man, my lady,” Thomas said with exasperation. “You cannot expect me to combat a whole band of outlaws!”

Cristen shrugged. “Then we shall have to avoid the outlaws.”

“Nay, my lady,” Thomas said, even more decisively than before. “I will not do it. It is too dangerous.”

Cristen regarded him thoughtfully. Thomas looked warily back. Then he had another thought.

“Besides, as you yourself just pointed out to me, you are the one Sir Nigel left in charge of Somerford. You can’t desert your post, my lady. We are all looking to you for leadership.”

“Lionel is perfectly capable of seeing to the knights, and my women will see to the household. I won’t be missed.”

Thomas looked stubborn. “In normal times, that might be so. But what if we are attacked?”

“We won’t be attacked,” Cristen said.

“How can you be sure?” Thomas demanded.

A long moment passed in silence. Then Cristen said in a very gentle voice, “I don’t think you quite understand, Thomas. If you refuse to escort me to Lincoln, then I shall have to go by myself.”

Thomas looked horrified.

“I plan to ride out immediately after dinner,” Cristen went on. “Either I go alone, or I go with you and Mabel. The choice is yours.”

Thomas ran nervous fingers through his wheat-colored hair, which needed to be cut again. “You are not being fair, my lady!”

“No, I’m not,” Cristen agreed. “I am putting you in a horrible position. I know it, and I apologize. But you see, Thomas, I am desperate. I must and I will go to Lord Hugh. I will feel safer if you go with me, but if you won’t, I will be compelled to go alone.”

Thomas looked miserable.

“I will tell Sir Nigel that I gave you no choice,” Cristen said sympathetically. “I promise that you will not be held accountable for my actions.”

Thomas ran distracted fingers through his hair once more.

“I really think Sir Nigel will be angrier with you if you let me go alone than he will be if you go with me,” Cristen pointed out.

There was a brief silence. Then Thomas said sulkily, “All right, my lady. I will take you to Lincoln.”

Cristen gave him a brilliant smile. “Thank you, Thomas.”

The young knight did not smile back. “You show no mercy, my lady,” he complained.

“I can’t afford to,” Cristen replied. Her smile died away and her face looked suddenly grim.

Thomas scowled. “How the devil am I to explain our departure to Lionel?”

“I will say that someone is ill in Malmesbury and I have been sent for,” Cristen said. “You will be my escort.”

“And what will they think when we don’t return?”

“At first they will think that we have stayed the night in Malmesbury. I have done that often enough. And we will stop in the town long enough to leave a note at the abbey explaining things. I shall ask that the note be delivered to Lionel tomorrow afternoon. We will have enough of a start by then to prevent him from trying to catch up with us.”

“You have thought of everything, my lady,” Thomas said with heavy irony.

Cristen stared intently at the pot that she had placed on the tile to cool. “I hope I have,” she replied. “I’m sorry I must coerce you like this, Thomas. And I am sorry that I must desert the trust my father left me with here at Somerford.”

She drew in a long, uneven breath and concluded starkly, “But nothing is as important as Hugh.”

T
HE
M
ANOR OF
L
INSAY

H
aving regained his composure and feeling somewhat rested, Hugh left the town house where he had lived with his foster parents and returned to the sheriff’s. There he washed, changed his clothes, and reclaimed his horse to ride to Linsay, the manor that John Rye held in knight’s fee from the bishop.

Patches of lighter sky showed here and there where the cloud cover momentarily thinned, but overall the early sunshine had turned to gray. Hugh followed Ermine Street through the city and out into Lincoln Fields, the meadows and farmlands on the north side of the city walls that belonged to the town.

The winter fields that stretched before Hugh were bare and brown, but he remembered how green and gold they looked under the summer sun. Each freeman of the town held and farmed four to six acres of this open land, and in the warm months the fields were ripe with wheat, barley, rye, oats, vetches, peas, and beans.

The town’s hay fields were bare as well. Hugh re
called how Ralf had been forced to restrict the number of livestock a freeman could graze on the common pasture because the town possessed only one hundred acres of meadow on which to grow hay, the only forage available to Lincoln’s animals through the winter.

Hugh might not have been reared to manage the great estates and vast lands he had been born to, but he had learned very young what it meant to administer a large city. Ralf had been more than a mere law enforcer when he had been Sheriff of Lincoln. His competence, his honesty, and his sense of justice had made people turn to him to solve all of the town’s problems. In everything but name, Ralf Corbaille had been Lord of Lincoln. Hugh had learned more than just the knightly arts from his foster father. He had learned the skill of governing.

He passed beyond Lincoln Fields into the bare, frozen countryside. He had been told that John Rye’s manor lay seven miles to the northwest of Lincoln, near to the hamlet of Kestven. Hugh took the path to the village, planning to ask directions to Linsay once he arrived in Kestven.

The hamlet lay in a valley that in summer would be a vista of green fields and ploughed farmland but that today looked bare and cold under the gray February sky. Hugh stopped Rufus at the first cottage he came to, where an elderly woman was feeding chickens in her front yard.

He dismounted and stood at the log fence that separated the yard from the road. “Good afternoon, mistress,” he said. “I wonder if you could tell me the way to Linsay.”

The woman straightened up and automatically rubbed the small of her back as if it ached. She turned
where she was standing and regarded Hugh at the fence.

“If you bear right at the end of the village, there is a road that will take you straight there,” she said at last. At her feet, the chickens pecked industriously in the dirt, searching for their food.

Hugh smiled. “Thank you, mistress.”

She smiled back, showing toothless gums, and went back to her chores.

Hugh put his toe in his stirrup, swung up into his saddle, and continued on the single road that went through the hamlet, which consisted of a few modest huts and livestock pens. At the end of the village, the road forked and he turned right.

He had ridden for less than a quarter of an hour when he reached a stockade fence surrounding a manor, which he took to be Linsay. It looked to be about as large as his own manor of Hendly, the third-largest of the properties that Ralf had bequeathed to his foster son.

The gate that led into the courtyard was shut and appeared to be unattended. When no one answered his shout, Hugh dismounted, walked to the tall timber door, and banged on it. He received no reply, but thought he heard scuffling noises within. Holding Rufus’s reins, he gave the gate a slight push.

To his surprise, it swung open.

What is going on here?
he thought. Cautiously he pushed the door wider so he could have a view of the yard inside.

In the middle of the deserted courtyard stood a girl and a boy. The girl was holding a large stick, which she evidently had been using to play with a light brown mastiff by her side. Upon seeing the stranger,
the huge dog flattened his ears and lunged toward him.

Hugh didn’t move.

The girl screamed, “
Benjamin. Stop!
”

The dog halted two feet away from Hugh and growled low in his throat.

“Hello there, fellow,” Hugh said mildly, and very slowly stretched out his hand.

The children came running up, their feet pounding on the dirt of the courtyard.

Suspiciously, Benjamin sniffed Hugh’s proferred hand. His head was enormous. After a moment, the dog’s tail wagged back and forth. Once.

“Good boy,” Hugh said.

The boy took a firm hold on the thick hair of the dog’s ruff.

Rufus, who liked dogs, pricked his ears and bent his head to sniff the mastiff.

The dog flattened his ears and growled.

Rufus lifted his head and blew through his nose.

The boy, who looked to be about eight, took a stronger hold on the dog. “Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded of Hugh.

“My name is Hugh de Leon and I am in search of John Rye,” Hugh replied easily. “Can you tell me if he is here?”

The little girl answered in a high, clear voice, “Papa isn’t at home right now.”

“Iseult!” the boy hissed warningly.

The girl’s eyes, which were the exact same blue as the boy’s, sparked with anger. Mud was caked on her boots and on the hem of her cloak. Her untidy black hair was spilling out of its braids. She looked about five.

“You are always scolding me, Nicholas,” she complained. “I didn’t say anything wrong.”

“Your brother thinks that you don’t know me and that perhaps it isn’t wise to let me know that your father isn’t here to protect you,” Hugh replied. He looked gravely into the suspicious blue glare of the boy. “I mean you no harm,” he said. “I only came to have a word with your father. I am alone.”

He turned his head to glance around the deserted courtyard, then he looked back at the children. “Shouldn’t there be someone at the gate?”

Iseult said sadly, “Everyone ran away when Mama got sick.”

Hugh glanced toward the stone hall that was the manor house. “Your mother is sick?”

The boy looked at his feet. “Aye,” he muttered.

Benjamin lay down, evidently deciding that the children were safe, and the boy released his hold on the dog’s neck.

“Who is looking after her?” Hugh asked.

“Edith is,” Iseult said helpfully.

Hugh frowned. “Perhaps I had better talk to this Edith. It sounds as if she might need some help.”

The two children could not disguise their relief.

“I think perhaps you are right,” the boy admitted.

“May I put my horse in your stable?”

“Aye. There is no one to look after him, though. All the grooms ran away.”

“I will look after him myself once I have seen Edith,” Hugh said.

The two children and the dog accompanied Hugh to the empty stable, where he unsaddled Rufus and put him in a bare stall with a bucket of water. They left the dog in the stable and went toward the house,
which was of a type prevalent among the Normans. In this popular design, the stone hall was raised on a storage cellar, which could be entered by a doorway in one of the side walls. The door to the main part of the house was reached by an external staircase made of wood.

“You have pretty eyes,” Iseult said to Hugh as they climbed the stairs to the front door.

“Thank you,” Hugh replied gravely.

“Iseult!” her brother commanded. “Don’t be rude.”

Hugh regarded the boy, whose hair was as black as his own. “It was a compliment,” he said.

The boy flushed, pushed open the big front door, and gestured for Hugh to precede him inside.

They entered a long narrow lobby, which was enclosed by the timber partitions that separated the stone hall into two rooms. The children led Hugh through the door on their left, into the room that was the manor’s great hall.

A niggardly fire was burning in the fireplace; otherwise the room showed no sign of occupation. The rushes on the floor looked dirty and gave off an odor that made Hugh’s nostrils pinch together.

“Iseult,” Nicholas said, “go and tell Edith that someone is here who wishes to talk to her.”

Hugh realized with a mixture of amusement and approval that the boy had no intention of leaving him alone.

Without answering, the little girl ran back toward the lobby. Hugh was familiar with this type of house and knew there would be a solar on the other side of the lobby, and over the solar, a loft with private bedrooms.

It was some minutes before Iseult returned, accom
panied by a heavyset middle-aged woman with gray-blond hair and pale blue eyes. She was dressed in brown homespun and looked exceedingly weary.

“This is the man I told you about,” Iseult said in English.

Hugh smiled reassuringly at Edith and spoke to her in the same language. “My name is Hugh de Leon and I have come from Lincoln in search of John Rye. The children tell me he is not here, but you appear to have trouble, and if there is anything I can do to help you, I will gladly try.”

Edith said, “Run along, children, and let me talk to the gentleman.”

The boy scowled. “I’m not a child! I know Mama is very sick. You don’t have to keep trying to hide things from me, Edith!”

Hugh looked at Edith’s weary face and said quietly, “Take your sister outside, Nicholas. I will talk to you later.”

Nicholas’s eyes searched Hugh’s. Then he nodded curtly and held out his hand. “Come along, Iseult. We had better go and let Benjamin out of the stable.”

The children went out, and Hugh turned to the serving woman. “Shall we sit down?” he said kindly. “You look worn out.”

She nodded and moved to one of the benches that was pulled up in front of the meager fire. Hugh sat on a bench opposite her.

“So,” he said, still in that gentle tone. “What is going on here?”

The woman spoke English with a thick Lincolnshire accent, but Hugh had grown up hearing such speech and understood it effortlessly.

“Three days after Sir John left Linsay, Lady Berta got
sick,” Edith said. “I thought she had the smallpox. She had a high fever and her face broke all out in spots.”

Hugh had rather suspected something like this. The threat of smallpox was more than enough to scare away a household.

“Have there been other cases of smallpox in the area?” he asked.

“None that I know of,” Edith replied. “At any rate, news of Lady Berta’s illness soon spread around the manor, and one by one, everyone ran away—the men Sir John had left to protect us, the serving maids, the grooms. Everyone.”

Hugh looked grim. “Why did you remain?”

Edith looked down at her lap and did not reply.

“Edith?” Hugh said.

The woman shrugged her broad shoulders. “I took care of Lady Berta when she first come down with the fever, so by the time the spots come out, I reckoned I was sure to catch it. I could not bring such a terrible sickness back to my family, so I stayed.”

Hugh regarded her gravely and did not reply.

Edith looked up from her lap. “The strange thing is, my lord, now I am not sure if Lady Berta has the smallpox after all.”

Hugh lifted his brows. “Why do you think that?”

“She is getting better, my lord, and the spots seem to be fading. They never turned into pustules, the way the smallpox do.”

The fire was almost out, Hugh noticed. He would have to do something about it. “That is unusual,” he agreed.

“I don’t know what it is, but I do not think it is the smallpox,” the woman repeated.

Hugh stretched his legs in front of him and regarded
his boots. “You said that Lady Berta became ill
after
her husband left?” he asked casually.

“Aye, my lord.”

He glanced up at her. “She was not ill when he returned from his duty at Lincoln Castle?”

Edith looked surprised. “Nay, my lord. She were fine then. She did not get ill till three days after he left to go to Roumare.”

Hugh’s expression never changed.

“Oh, did he go to see his cousin, then?”

“Aye, my lord. He went the very next day after he returned from Lincoln, and my lady did not get ill till later. He would never have left his son here if he knew of Lady Berta’s illness.”

Hugh forebore to comment upon the implication that Rye would not have shown the same concern for his small daughter.

Instead, he smiled into the woman’s worn face. “You have been magnificent, Edith, but I rather think you could use some assistance. If you like, I will remain here at Linsay and do what I can to be of help.”

The woman looked almost pathetically grateful. “I confess I would feel safer if there was a man around. As things stand now, we are completely unprotected. And God knows these times are dangerous.”

“That is settled, then,” Hugh said. He stood up. “You must let me know what you need: wood, water, meat…”

“I didn’t mean for you to work for us, my lord,” the woman protested, clearly horrified by the thought. “Just your presence will be a comfort.”

“Nonsense,” Hugh returned briskly. “I was brought up by a very careful housewife and I can assure you, Edith, I know my way about a house and a kitchen.”
He sniffed and looked around the hall. “The first thing I am going to do is get rid of these disgusting rushes.”

Edith’s pale blue eyes regarded him with fascination. “You are?”

“Aye. The children can help me.”

For the first time since she had come into the room, Edith smiled. “It will be good for them to have something to do. I have kept them away from their mother and I know they have been fretting.”

“I can think of a number of things we can do around here,” Hugh said, recalling the unkept state of the stable.

“How…how long do you think to stay, my lord?” Edith asked timidly.

“I won’t desert you until your master returns,” Hugh promised.

The woman heaved a great sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lord! You are very kind.”

“Not at all,” Hugh replied a little grimly. “Now, let me go and find those children.”